The formula for success in baseball really isn’t that complicated: get men on base when you’re batting and limit them when you’re on defense. As you might imagine, the Cubs have not necessarily been able to balance this relatively simple equation over the last handful of years.
Since 2011, they’ve ranked no higher than 20th in MLB in terms of OBP (.314 that year), and they’ve generally languished at the bottom of the pile. Their .302 number in 2012 ranked them 29th, .300 in 2013 was 28th, and 2014 saw the same OBP and MLB rank. In general, this is really awful.